It was one of those days. That moment when that sense of overwhelming frustration just hits. There I was sitting at the edge of my bed, trying to nurse an agitated Sarah who was overtired. Second wind. I had been sitting there for 15 mins and counting.

Prior to trying to get Sarah to nap, I had given the boys instructions to tidy up their tables, living room and the Lego on the floor. This was the lead up to a movie once Sarah was asleep and the living room cleared. Dinner was not cooked and I was getting annoyed cos I knew the brown rice was going to take 2 hours and it was already 4.30pm.

With an agitated Sarah, who was tossing and throwing herself around in my arms, and the silence outside in the living room, the pressure started to mount. I needed to vent and texted the husband. The mental overload was getting overwhelming. The silence outside..was too loud.

What were the boys doing outside?Are they tidying up?Would I still go out to a mess?How was I going to deal with them apart from withdrawing the movie?

I needed dessert. Sugar. Something nice. I told the husband that. But I also know he was on my case about cutting down sugar. Argh. That got me riled up as well.

‘What flavour do you want?’ he replied.

As I thought I also heard the door, I decided,’screw this, she is not yet asleep, let’s go see what is happening outside’.

No one was at the door. The living room was 95% cleared to my satisfaction (which happens very rarely), and the boys had been keeping the toys quietly so that Sarah would sleep faster, something that I had sorta drilled into them in the early days but..there are days that they still make enough noise to keep Sarah awake.

The pressure was released. I felt some load lifted off. Dinner was not cooked, but all of us were going to be in a better mood. I felt better, not as frustrated as before.

Went back into the bedroom to try and put Sarah down for a nap again. She finally does so by 5pm, and I hurriedly got around to setting up the movie and chips for the boys, whilst telling them to sort out one last area. A promise was a promise.

I couldn’t help but feel that I had the best boys in the world. Tell me that again when I get ready to want to kill them again. hahaha. But heck, it made me feel that for all the moments I felt guilty about not doing stuff with them, I probably did something right to get them onto this path.

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Once I got them sorted with the movie, I went ahead with dinner preps, quickly running through my head what I needed to do first to optimise the time. Cook the rice, preheat the oven, boil water, prep the chicken to be roasted, cut up the veggies and soak, wash the dishes and make some fries. Sarah woke up mid-fries marination, but it’s all good. The major stuff was out of the way.

As I did the dishes, I smiled to myself.

Last weekend, the hubby and I had gotten into an argument cos I had accused him of not helping out with the chores and focusing on personal work. The laundry to be folded had piled up and I had shifted it from the ‘laundry chair’ to a ‘laundry bed’ for the weekend cos the bulk of the clothes belonged to the kids. It had gotten to a point where I was sick of thinking about what household chore I needed to do next. There was always catching up to do.

Just as Donald had naively assumed back in the early days, that as a SAHM, I had nothing much to do, I was guilty of thinking that he doesn’t really do much to help out around the house. He offered to do the dishes, but he would sigh or groan whilst washing, which made me feel like he was ‘judging’. We have since agreed that he will happily wash the dishes without any ‘comment’.

Throwback to yesterday, he came home, stared at the sink full of veggie scraps and then grinned at me before exclaiming,

‘I’m so happy to be doing the dishes! It’s so great..to see the sink full of veggie scraps!’

I couldn’t help by laugh at the absurdity of it. The argument seemed silly then but it had allowed me to vent about the internal pressure I was feeling and to tell hubby what exactly he needs to do (including exclaiming happily about washing dishes! hahahaha)

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It was the school hols last week. The kids were recovering from a cough and cold so playdates were out. I had a busy weekend just before the school hols started, and decided that I was going to take it easy the next week as I was also recovering from a cough and cold. I was spamming lozenges, flu tablets, vitamin C and manuka honey..just to feel alive.

Post school hols, I felt really rested. The boys stayed over at their grandparents some nights, I took them out for lunch, we had a family photoshoot by Gideon from Grow Old With Me (the sneak peek photos were awesome!!), back to the shop over the weekend, rethinking some priorities. I slept early (I mean like 10.30pm) most nights and Sarah was being nice by pulling longer hours! Ahhh what luxury.

Then I had to pay it back with a growth spurt plus teething baby this week. Urrrgh. Why you hate me so much? And why you no call me mama!! >:(